Positive Train Control - GPS Forums

From last Friday's Los Angeles Times:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la...,5454524.story

"The entire system is expected to be operational next year, meaning
that Metrolink would be one of the first passenger railroads in the
nation to fully deploy a state-of-the-art train control system that
marries global positioning technology to computers and digital radio
communications.

It also means that Southern California could find itself serving for
years as a groundbreaking and isolated safety test lab if Congress
decides to postpone the deadline from 2015 to 2020 for installing the
technology.

.. . . Congress set a Dec. 31, 2015, deadline for positive train
control after a Metrolink train collided head-on with a Union Pacific
freight train near the Chatsworth station in September 2008, killing
25 people and injuring more than 130.

.. . . A major impediment, most experts agree, is a lack of the radio
frequencies needed for the system's extensive communications network."

Design News story from a little over 3 years ago, after the Chatsworth
disaster:

http://www.designnews.com/document.asp?doc_id=228049

"Modern PTC technology has been around for more than 20 years and was
put on the NTSB's "Most Wanted Safety Improvement List" when it was
first compiled in 1990. NTSB Chairman Mark Rosenker at an October
railroad safety conference in Denver, CO called on the industry to
implement it. Then again, so did his predecessor Jim Hall, who traced
the technology to automatically stop trains back to 1919, in a 1996
speech.

.. . . PTC's building blocks are comprised of digital radio
communications, computers, Geographical Information Systems (GIS), the
Global Positioning System (GPS) and in some cases Wifi.

One early PTC system called ARES (Advanced Railroad Electronics
System) implemented over 250 miles of track on the then Burlington
Northern Railroad (now BNSF) worked successfully for six years until
the project ended in 1993. One study says it promised to statistically
reduce control system-related accidents from 50 accidents per year to
0.05 accidents per year."

http://www.designnews.com/document.asp?doc_id=228051

"Positive Train Control Ran Successfully in Years-Long Burlington
Northern Railroad Trial
John Dodge, Editor-in-Chief
10/21/2008

New technologies need champions and in the 1980s, Positive Train
Control (PTC) found one in Burlington Northern Railroad (BN) R&D
Director Steve Ditmeyer.

Ditmeyer and other BN executives pioneered the development of ARES
(Advanced Railroad Electronics System), a PTC system that promised to
thrust the railroad into the digital age.

.. . . ARES was modeled like an air traffic control system and was
based on the avionics developed by Rockwell Collins for the then-new
Boeing 757 and 767 jetliners. After a successful demo in 1985, a
prototype system was launched over a 250-mile stretch of track in
north Minnesota's Iron Range in 1987.

.. . . By 1989, the ARES prototype was deemed a success. Trains could
reliably be located in real time by GPS run against a Geographical
Information System (GIS). Communications between locomotives,
dispatcher and trackside devices were carried over BN's extensive
microwave and radio networks. And PTC trains would be stopped
automatically if the engineer exceeded speed limits and violated track
authority.

.. . . ARES could safely put trains on the system, but how many dollars
that would generate was unclear. Executives wanted guarantees and of
course, there never is with bleeding-edge technology. ARES also
expansively altered train operations, not just the signaling and
dispatching, and that intimidated some railroaders in an industry
whose resistance to change is the stuff of legends.

Alas, the ARES prototype in the Iron Range was shut off in 1993.

.. . . Countless lost dollars, accidents and deaths later, America's
railroads save about 250 miles in the Northeast Corridor still do not
have PTC.

"I'm appalled that [Chatsworth] occurred. My friends and I ask: 'Is
this the accident that finally makes Congress make the railroads
install PTC?' says Ditmeyer, now semi-retired and an adjunct professor
at Michigan State University's Railway Management Program."

A 1986 story on ARES:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1...thern-railroad

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1...ern-railroad/2

A 2008 overview of PTC:

http://www.psctechnicalforum.com/fil...eS-Polivka.pdf

A more recent solicitation on position determination for PTC:

https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportun...=core&_cview=1

"FRA and the North American railroad industry have been developing
various elements for a typical Positive Train Control (PTC) system and
have been demonstrating, with system integration, various functions of
PTC systems. However, during these demonstrations, certain limitations
in the designs and technology that would negatively affect the
operating efficiency and line capacity were revealed. Two of these
identified limitations are train length data accuracy and positive
determination of train location."

https://www.fbo.gov/utils/view?id=8f...399b76261018bc

"PTL-35 The PTL system shall determine and report the position of
the locomotive along the track with an accuracy of <= 1.2 meters, at a
confidence level of 99.999999997%. . . .

PTL-36 The PTL system shall determine and report the position of
the rear of the train along the track with an accuracy of <= 1.2
meters, at a confidence level of 99.999999997%."

That appears to be more stringent than 6 sigma. There is a note
offering a relaxation if the offeror can justify it.

In the original TV mini-series of "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy",
there's a scene in which Gerry Westerby ("The Honourable Schoolboy")
is having dinner with George Smiley, and discussing the decline of The
Circus. Gerry asks, "Who's responsible for this mess, George?"
Smiley, with his poker face, answers, "Golfers, mostly. Golfers and
Conservatives. At least that's what Control used to say."

Source: http://www.gps-forums.net/positive-train-control-t43772.html

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